Hey all,I had a cracking time as always, fine food and welcome on Friday in Rickmansworth and then a well organised tournament in a nice location with a good spirit. I always have this moment where I think I'm in the middle of a great tournament and then sadly realise I've only got one or two games left. Loved the doubles tournament, almost as much as the singles, although I bet it's frustrating for the experts who get paired with those less successful. Many thanks to the organisers; I'm never sure who does what, although I'm always thankful when I see how much hardware Steve C and Rob bring. I feel like the future is bright for the organisation, e adesso voglio parlare molto Italiano.

iankay wrote:Hey all,I had a cracking time as always, fine food and welcome on Friday in Rickmansworth and then a well organised tournament in a nice location with a good spirit. I always have this moment where I think I'm in the middle of a great tournament and then sadly realise I've only got one or two games left. Loved the doubles tournament, almost as much as the singles, although I bet it's frustrating for WHOEVER GETS PAIRED WITH JOHN VELLA! Many thanks to the organisers; I'm never sure who does what, although I'm always thankful when I see how much hardware Steve C and Rob bring. I feel like the future is bright for the organisation, e adesso voglio parlare molto Italiano.

Waynie L 8-0: It was passed long time after our last game, I was pleased to see Waynie again, strange now we talk about kids rather than formations and substitutions! but we are on the pitch again, and that counts. I knew he is a tough fighter but out from the battle for long time. A good opponent to start a long day tournament. With nothing to lose against me, I knew he could be very dangerous. I need to enter in tournament form the first second, to be focused to avoid goals I can stop and to score the goals I can score. and that was so.

John V 13-2: It is unbelievable : after 26 years it is possible to still find new opponents: my very first match with John. a nice fellow, he was the first one who beat my Fisher. twice. I beat his Fisher a little more.

Mark E 8-1: I played Ely very few times. just over UK soil. I was pleased to spend time with him also Saturday night. He is a nice NOPBD player. in a perfect match he can survive standing also against top guns. luckily for me it wasn't his perfect match.

Sandro T 8-2: 4th match of the day with my brother. He wasn't playing KO2 since Dublin. before Dublin Sandro wasn't playing KO2 since Copenhagen 2014. A pity he doesn't play KO2 often like he did in the past, he is a tremendous player but without practice he loses all the timing and moves needed to perform perfect actions. he is a far shadow of himself of late 2000s. Anyway a 50% Sandro is still enough to reach the mid high part of the table. Hope to see him at his 70-80% next November.

Alessandro V 15-2: Luckily we took the picture together before the match. he is the player I played most in my life and he is the player I have most fun to play together. Without him to teach me to play Kick Off, I wouldn't be the 4 times world champion. the 8 times world cup finalist. Many times he beats me, most the times I beat him. Never in 26 years I gave him 15 goals. Until today... one of those matches where every time you kick the ball, even unintended, the ball cross the line.

Steve C 9-2: He is one of the international players I played more. Always nice to play with him, another one I'm used to talk while we play, he is one of my favourite english teacher after all! he score a couple of Camber goals, and I have to say I used the same coin a couple of times too!

Mark V 11-2: 7th match is another new entry among my opponents: it is my first match with Mark. Nice game and nice fellow. We played a friendly before the tournament, the gap wasn't that wide. but you know, the tension of the tournament probably had an influence on his performance.

Robert S 9-2: 8th match. he is surely the international opponent/friend I played more. in the past he was a 100% attendee at every Italian champs, we joined together the past Greek Champs 2011, Dubai International 2011 and many other international and national UK tournaments. He knows me, I know him. No matter that, he was able to surprise me with a corner kick routine! starting the lead of the match. luckily I turned immediately the trend of the match getting a comfortable gap. Memorable his game with Ely, in with he brought the extreme swearing to the next level.

Steve E 8-5: One of my hardest victory ever. in this game I definitively realized that to change Barrett at the very first second could be very dangerous, in particular if you get 2 injuries in the first minute of the game and the second injured player is called R.Cox. Basically I played 9 minutes without Cox. Against Steve E that, in 11vs11 is a very tough player already. About Steve, I think he is one of the best NOPBD players ever, when you see him to approach the box, you say, hey it's time to turn back to NOPBD again! (I played 13 years NOPBD).I think in the past I would have lost my mind in a situation like that and I would have surely lost the match. Instead, probably due to my self confidence, I was able to stay calm and manage the situations. I had to follow the score for 3/4 of the match but in the end I made 3-4 breaks that gave me a confortale insurance gap.I will remember this match

Christopher D 7-4: Another one who could claim the Holy Shield, sooner or later. If I remember correctly he was leading 0-3. Luckily for me I closed the gap in very few minutes getting the lead in the first half and keeping him down in the second.

Steve E and Christopher D managed to take points to the World Champion giving me the UK crown 3 games before the direct challenge between Andy and me.

Stephen D 8-2: With Stephen I played already, this time he played better and he scored a very nice diagonal goal. he is another on who could be awarded with a David Vs Golia trophy, he could get the scalp of some big gun

Ian K 13-4: the DD is severe, he scored the best goals among my opponents 4 very nice goals. I think he is another one looking for the D Vs G award and probably more.

Andy G 7-9: It is Always a pleasure to play against a so talented and eclectic player like Andy. so eclectic that now he turned to NOPBD!As said, in our last game, the UK crown was assigned already but that is quite far to say that I played with no motivations: I wanted to get my revenge after the 2 crashing defeats I suffered at the Dublin's world cup finals.I wanted to mark the perfect tournament with all victories. Instead I recorded my 3rd defeat straight playing Andy. who played an amazing defence at least 3 goals with Fisher defeat. thing that I wasn't able to do, he was even near to sound me with a DD again. nice up and down in the score, the game was 7-8 for time and I was very near to get the draw, instead he was good to stop me and score the goal that closed the match. 9 goals in NOPBD against a player who reached 3 times world cup best defence. BTW also Dagh moved to NOPBD... I think I'll be the next one to move back to NOPBD!

Thanks again to every one who take part to this very nice week end!long live the KOA!

Sorry my report was a bit late in coming but I felt this wonderful tournament deserved a public response on the forum. Before I post my review though I just want to make out why I was always in two minds about going. Also I tried to explain a bit of this to Gianni but being hyper on the day due to the frantic gameplay of KO2 I’m unsure what he understood – so this post is for Gianni and also for everyone else, an honest assessment as to what occurred with me on the KOA over Christmas...

I must admit I was in too minds whether to attend due to the aggravation that occurred around Christmas time on the KOA. My whole reason for coming back on the forum were honourable in the sense that I had a deep desire to play KO2 again having not gone to the world cup in Ireland. Around this time I’d also had a chat with Dino and it was suggested to me that I could be a community manager on the new game. But not for definite.

So with my enthusiasm for Kick Off 2 being rekindled due to the disappointment of missing out on Ireland, I thought that Dino had no knowledge of the things KOBRA had done over the years. So I figured (and Gaz and Si thought I was mad for suggesting it at the time), that we have 12 mad months of doing everything we did over 8 years or so. Take the potential opportunity by the scruff of the neck and prove to Dino that we are the guys.Yep, my enthusiasm for all things Kick Off 2 spilled into a very real prospect that there might be a job in it for us. Also, we stopped organising things previously because it was too much of a ball ache to do anything due to constant disappointment of non committal players (no-one here I hasten to add), but with 2016 seeing the release of Kick Off Revived, I figured this would be the year of Kick Off as a brand and so you’d be potentially turning people away it would be that popular.

So with all that in mind, I unleashed the positivity on the forum and my mind is then cast back to Birmingham, which was to all extents a great world cup. We’d honed all the knowledge of attending other world cups and organising the UK Champs over the years to produce an event that was well received. To hear Alkis speak of it in such glowing terms was unbelievable to be honest.

But I know there was an ‘elephant in the room’ over the rules of auto slides and whatnot. (I say this because with the passage of time, it's easy to forget the good times and only remember the bad) So I figured lets try to continue the positivity by appealing to everyone. I couldn’t be arsed with a vote because I saw it as wasting valuable player recruitment time and because it was me doing the spearheading with this one, I wanted the rules resolved quickly. I don’t have the patience that Gaz has, so I wanted it done yesterday as it were.I was also a little miffed with a few shenanigans that were going on. To me it seemed like the KOA was a wild west and we had a new sheriff in town. What I discovered about most recent world cup was astonishing but weirdly it seemed like to me, at the time, that no-one cared. I was also being strongly pressed into using the existing world cup website, the existing social media outlets (why?) when the ones I’d created for the 2011 World Cup actually had more users. Then I believe Danny emailed a shed load of people about putting forward a world cup bid. To be honest, I felt put into a corner but looking back on it, this wasn’t done by the normal KOA heiracy of Mark, Alkis, Rob, Jorn, Gianni etc. But it felt like the whole forum was against me in spirit at the time.At the same time all this was going on, I know Dino was embroiled in his own issue and yes, I got caught up into it and so he invited me into his private yahoo chat.

So Dino felt misled about something, so did others and I felt trapped into a corner due to a completely different issue with the auto slides and whatnot.Naturally people were getting a little excited due to heated discussions on the KOA. It was suggested to me that I was being bullied and I said hypothetically that if I am being bullied then I feel like hosting rival tournaments. About 2 minutes later I clarified this with the notion that I wouldn't want to do this anyway. Besides, I was only speaking hypothetically in the first place! Besides, what prat would organise rival ko2 tournaments and alienate the actual ko2 players ....in this hypothetical situation I'd have no-one turning up lolWell, apart from the new players. But I've yet to meet them so for me, the magic of tournaments is what I've experienced when playing guys from the KOA.

In my head I figured the proposal of the rules would be Utopia but it seemed to be interpreted that I had some ulterior motive? There was an ulterior motive going on but I must stress it wasn't coming from me! I was just caught up in the whirlwind.To be honest I’m actually glad that all this happened because it forced the old guys such as Rob and Alkis to come back on the board and reclaim the KOA, the whole escapade actually re-invigorated the KOA even though it was full of arguments. Anyway, all of the misinterpretations was discussed in the weekend after Christmas and everything was sorted with us all continuing 2016 as friends (thank goodness)Still, before I went to Hemel Hempstead I was mindful that things can linger...I'm still mindful that this can happen hence why I've written this out for all to see.

As for the tournament itself it was wonderful. My very real nerves were put at ease when Rob stopped his game to greet me, shake my hand. Little gestures like that went a long way due to what happened. Then I had a great chat with Andy and throughout the whole day they were pressing me to attend this, attend that. In other words I was welcomed beyond belief. Thanks guys

The games themselves were unbelievable. Win lose or draw I didn’t give a shit, I was just glad I was playing again. To the new guys such as the Vella brothers, keep at it...i finished bottom of my first tournament and then ended up being the UK Champion – and on this particular weekend I actually beat the World Champion! I joked with Andy does that make me the current champ by default? HeheheUnbelievable game against Ian Kay too ffs. The game was way too close for comfort and putting on my tournament hat, it was a game I figured I needed to win and could win. But Ian has improved so much and when I was about to sneak a 4-5 win I conceded a penalty! Not to worry though because I’d saved two against Andy back in Bournemouth a few years ago. What happens this time? Ian hits the post...yes! Only for him to slot home the rebound. Well played mate!I felt more than fortunate to get a win over Sandro, whom I was also surprised didn't finish higher. My game against him though went 2-0 to me, 2-2 before I then got the lead back. The exact same occurred against.... but in reverse! Weird how the day had a certain synchronicity to it.At one stage I mentioned how I wanted to finish 4th and with me not having played in a long time it felt like a big ask. I felt more than fortunate in various games and against Gianni I was actually tempted to suggest we start the game due to him having Cox sent off. I felt like this affected me too tbh as I was then understandably playing against Lockout. What a player Gianni is though to play without Cox and still win!For me I wanted to re-enter the KOA world again and it was my game against Andy which would completely rid me of any rust because I proved that I can mix it with the top players when I’m on form. I cannot remember much about the game but I was pleased I was still up there and was a challenger.

However win lose or draw I always looked for positives and look forward to the next time. Hope I haven’t bored you with my ramblings but now I’d laid my cards on the table and put the truth of what happened, my conscience is now clear now I've explained it to the KOA as a whole.Out of respect I have used names sparingly and I hope I've cleared up any misinterpretations, any assumptions people may have had about me and my honourable intentions last Christmas.

I cant for the life of me figure out why any of the comments above would be looked upon negatively by any of the existing members and posters of the KOA, but if so then feel free to ask (perhaps best by PM) and I’d have no problems in clarifying things further.The reason for me posting this now is that I want to make things clear to everyone what happened and my role (or not) in what occured.I've spent years on this forum, spent countless hours organsing, doing marketing with gaz and si, spent countless hours driving, countless pounds on petrol etc. - like we all have. More importantly, you guys are my friends. But I simply don't want to see all that flushed down the toilet due to a misinterpretation as to my intentions.

would like to quantify the above also with the fact that i really wanted to go to the world cup after Dublin, so combined with all the factors, it resulted in an outpouring of KO2 fandom. But I wanted to go with a clear conscience and recapture the spirit of the old kobra days. Then it sorta spiralled out of control lol

Thank you very much, Steve!Maybe my english is (somehow) improved, as I understood (somehow) everything in our Apsley chat! And I'm really glad you have been there as we could talk face to face. In your eyes I could see the love for this game and the joy to stay together around the Kick Off Fire. Thank you very much, again.Please, do your best to be in Milan this autumn!

Steve, it was good to chat with you in person and really hope you can go to the Milan WC mate, and bring Simon and Garry with you!

In reality and outside of the matrix of the interwebs, we all see that the KOA is simply about a bunch of people that have cultivated a true, loyal and genuine friendship over more than a decade via the love of this game. All we want to do is meet our friends, have fun and beat the shit out of each other playing KO2 and then laugh about it after.